IN THE wake of US air strikes against ISIS in the Kurdish region of Iraq, supporters of the Islamic jihadists have launched a counter attack on social media.

Bearing the hashtag #AmessagefromISIStoUS fanatical supporters of the group tweeted thousands of messages, many featuring sick images of dead American soldiers and citizens alongside warnings of further atrocities.

The tweeted threats, frequently in bad English, were accompanied by photos of the 9/11 attacks and of US marines killed in Iraq, including gruesome images of the charred body of a dead American contractor hung from a bridge in Fallujah following an infamous 2004 ambush.

Another tweeted: “This is a message for every American Citizen. You are the target of every Muslim in the world wherever you are.”

The tweets came after the US launched its first air strikes in Iraq against ISIS. On Saturday, President Barack Obama said that the strikes had destroyed arms and equipment held by ISIS forces whose rapid advance has surpassed US intelligence estimates.

The president warned that the new campaign in Iraq “is going to be a long-term project.” He wouldn’t give a timetable for how long the US military involvement would last, saying it depends on Iraq’s political efforts.

“I don’t think we are going to solve this problem in weeks,” Presiddent Obama said. “I think this is going to take some time.”

On Friday US fighter jets and drones attacked three separate militants’ convoys in a bid to stop the militants advance on the Kurdish city of Erbil and to prevent a potential genocide against an estimated 40,000 Yazidi and Christian minorities besieged on Mount Sinjar.

President Obama authorised the strikes, saying: “America is coming to help.”

US forces have already started to drop food and water to Iraqis racing to flee the Islamists.

Promise ... President Obama said America was coming to help. Picture: Charles DharapakSource:AP

The air strikes were the first US military action in Iraq in three years. However, President Obama, who rose to political prominence as an outspoken critic of his predecessor George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, said he was not sending back ground forces.

“As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.

“And so even as we support Iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there is no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq,” he said.

#AmessagefromISIStoUS All US companies or workers in any Muslim land is a target. Capture them for a swap deal for our Gitmo brothers